Over the past two decades, digital venues, digital activities, and digital memorabilia have grown at an exponential rate, directly coinciding with the advent and ever increasing popularity of the internet. Before the advent of the internet, these digital venues and digital activities did not exist. For example, fantasy sports teams and leagues did not exist before the digital age. However, fantasy sports teams and leagues have gained immense popularity, as evidenced by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association's (FSTA) staggering statistic that 42 million people aged 12 and older played fantasy sports in the U.S. and Canada in 2014.
Fantasy sports are games where participants act as sports team owners who assemble virtual teams of players from the real world rosters of actual teams. These virtual teams “compete” against other's virtual teams using game statistics generated by real individuals (or teams) in professional or collegiate sports. Fans can cut or trade players depending on the rules of their individual leagues, and points are compiled during actual game play manually by a designated league commissioner or (increasingly) by a computer software application.
As the popularity of these fantasy sports teams and leagues has grown, professional athletes have become ever more aware of its immense popularity, and to date, professional athletes frequently directly participate in these leagues.
Although athletes can autograph various forms of physical memorabilia for remuneration, to date, there has never been a way to do the same digitally for fantasy sports applications, leagues, and teams.